


Can You See The Stars

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fitzsimmons Week Summer Edition, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 08:11:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1933461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“First, you have to close your eyes.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can You See The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> for day one (stargazing) of [fitzsimmons week](http://fitzsimmons-week.tumblr.com/)

1

“I don’t want to go to bed,” he says with a pout, “I want to stay up and see the stars with you and mummy.”

“Now Leopold-“

“I’m four! That’s all grown up!”

His father laughs at that, scooping him up off the ground and into his arms, all while ignoring the pouting of the boy in his arms who seems to believe that bedtimes aren’t the boss of him anymore.

When he’s finally plopped into his bed once more, he fixes the best glare that he can manage and insists once again, “I’m not tired! I want to see the stars!”

What he wants to do is play with his parent’s fancy telescopes, they keep telling him when he’s older that he’ll be able to, but growing up seems too far away for a boy whose barely four.

“What if I told you I knew a way to see the stars in here?”

And he’s played this game before, so he giggles softly, nodding once.

“First, you have to close your eyes.”

He’s stubborn and still a boy, so he sneaks a peek instead of shutting them all the way, letting out an amused giggle when his father gives him the stern little look.

He knows it’s just a game, but he complies a moment later, squeezing them shut with all of his might.

“Now what,” he asks, ever impatient.

Even, though it seems like they’ve done this a thousand times and he certainly knows the rules, his father doesn’t even seem slightly exasperated as he explains, “Now, rub your hands against them.”

When he does as he’s told his father asks, “can you see the stars?”

“Yes, I can!”

 

2

His mother buys him a pack of glow stars from convenience store down the road the week his father leaves them.

He’s barely a boy, but he’s smart enough to know that this is as much a gift for him as it is a coping mechanism for her. So he sits on the bed with the books and maps as she presses them to the ceiling of his bedroom.  She explains the significance of the stars, she connects the dots for him in the way only an astrophysicist can, helping him map constellations to create his own night sky.

They both pretend things are going to be okay, and when the lights turn out and he’s tucked under the blankets without the lights on the roof to keep him company, he thinks he might be able to be okay one day.

Though before he closes his eyes he makes one wish upon the stars, “and if you can’t make him come home, then make mummy get better and make things happy again, okay that’s all.”

 

3

He can’t seem figure out why his room at the academy doesn’t feel right. He never expected it to feel like home, but there was something that was missing – something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, and yet he stayed up each night trying to figure out why his sleep wouldn’t come as easily as it ought to.

It’s not until he’s studying in Simmons room one day, he had just given up on their latest problem set, falling back onto her bed and throwing his hands up in defeat while she insists that if they just try a little harder everything will start to make sense.

“We’re going to fail,” he announces with certainty, “we’re going to have to drop out of the academy and become hobos!”

“Don’t say that,” Simmons replies, but she’s not really paying him too much attention, instead she’s focusing on trying to make sense of the set of problems.   

 “Honestly Simmons, I think-“ but he trails off before finishing his sentence, because he’s opened his eyes and there along the ceiling of her academy dorm room are plastic stars, “are those glow stars?”

“What,” she asks, clearly caught off guard, before following his eyes and hesitantly answering, “yes?”

“I thought we weren’t allowed to-“

“Oh we’re not, and I’m awful, I know,” she rambles, “but I used to have them up at home, and I couldn’t imagine sleeping without them, please don’t tell on me, because I really don’t want to get kicked out and – Fitz? Why are you smiling?”

He hadn’t even realized that he had been smiling, but once she mentioned it he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

“I knew there was a reason I was friends with you,” he finally says.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Fitz? You’re not going to get me in trouble right?”

A week later, he steals her room key and fixes the stars so that they’re in the proper positions as constellations.

The next day he finds a bucket of stars sitting on his bed, he doesn’t even try to figure out how she got in there to give them to him.

 

4

They’re feet are in the hotel’s pool, shoulders pressed together, and he’s trying to breath, trying to keep telling himself that everything is going to be alright as his world crumbles down around him. It’s almost enough that she’s sitting there beside him, telling him that she’s not going to betray them, that they’re going to get through this together.

If only his worried mind could remember that, instead of focusing on all the bad things.

What he needs is a distraction, and as if she’s reading his mind, Jemma finds a way to provide one.

“Look you can see the stars reflecting on the water,” Jemma says from her position beside him, pointing out the pinpricks of light against the ripples they’ve made in the water’s surface.

“I didn’t think we were far enough from the city, but…” She trails off, eyes turning to the sky and he follows her gaze.

There’s something beautiful and wonderful about the way the stars shine down all over them that night, it’s peaceful and for a second he can forget about how everything has gone wrong and focus on the one thing that has been constant his whole life, the one thing that never seems to change.

He finds that there are moments like this when he doesn’t care about the scientific explanations; he can forget that they’re burning balls of gas light years away and can still feel the childish joy he had felt at as a kid when he believed wishes on stars could come true.

Against his better judgment he finds himself wishing anyways that things could go back to the way they were weeks before.

“Oh Fitz,” she says softly, “I think we need a shooting star for that wish.”

 

5

He’s not sure where he is, or how long he’s been sleeping, or how he’s even alive, but there’s a moment when he opens his eyes, that as he blinks past the sleep and the blur from the machines keeping him stable, he sees the glowing stars lighting up the dark of his hospital room, and he knows that he’s finally _safe._

 


End file.
